Concrete operations stage

The concrete operations stage lasts from about seven to about 11. The word operations refers to logical
operations or principles we use when solving problems. In this stage, the child not only uses symbols
representationally, but can manipulate those symbols logically. Quite an accomplishment! But, at this
point, they must still perform these operations within the context of concrete situations.
The stage begins with progressive decentering. By six or seven, most children develop the ability
to conserve number, length, and liquid volume. Conservation refers to the idea that a quantity remains
the same despite changes in appearance. If you show a child four marbles in a row, then spread them
out, the preoperational child will focus on the spread, and tend to believe that there are now more
marbles than before.

Or if you have two five inch sticks laid parallel to each other, then move one of them a little, she may
believe that the moved stick is now longer than the other.

The concrete operations child, on the other hand, will know that there are still four marbles, and that
the stick doesnt change length even though it now extends beyond the other. And he will know that
you have to look at more than just the height of the milk in the glass: If you pour the mild from the
short, fat glass into the tall, skinny glass, he will tell you that there is the same amount of milk as before,
despite the dramatic increase in mild-level!

By seven or eight years old, children develop conservation of substance: If I take a ball of clay and roll it
into a long thin rod, or even split it into ten little pieces, the child knows that there is still the same
amount of clay. And he will know that, if you rolled it all back into a single ball, it would look quite the
same as it did -- a feature known as reversibility.

By nine or ten, the last of the conservation tests is mastered: conservation of area. If you take four
one-inch square pieces of felt, and lay them on a six-by-six cloth together in the center, the child who
conserves will know that they take up just as much room as the same squares spread out in the corners,
or, for that matter, anywhere at all.

If all this sounds too easy to be such a big deal, test your friends on conservation of mass: Which is
heavier: a million tons of lead, or a million tons of feathers?
In addition, a child learns classification and seriation during this stage. Classification refers back to the
question of whether there are more marbles or more black marbles? Now the child begins to get the
idea that one set can include another. Seriation is putting things in order. The younger child may start
putting things in order by, say size, but will quickly lose track. Now the child has no problem with such a
task. Since arithmetic is essentially nothing more than classification and seriation, the child is now ready
for some formal education!
Formal operations stage
But the concrete operations child has a hard time applying his new-found logical abilities to non-
concrete -- i.e. abstract -- events. If mom says to junior You shouldnt make fun of that boys
nose. How would you feel if someone did that to you? he is likely to respond I dont have a big
nose! Even this simple lesson may well be too abstract, too hypothetical, for his kind of thinking.
Dont judge the concrete operations child too harshly, though. Even adults are often taken-aback when
we present them with something hypothetical: If Edith has a lighter complexion than Susan, and Edith
is darker than Lily, who is the darkest? Most people need a moment or two.
From around 12 on, we enter the formal operations stage. Here we become increasingly competent at
adult-style thinking. This involves using logical operations, and using them in the abstract, rather than
the concrete. We often call this hypothetical thinking.
Heres a simple example of a task that a concrete operations child couldnt do, but which a formal
operations teenager or adult could -- with a little time and effort. Consider this rule about a set of cards
that have letters on one side and numbers on the other: If a card has a vowel on one side, then it has
an even number on the other side. Take a look at the cards below and tell me, which cards do I need to
turn over to tell if this rule is actually true? Youll find the answer at the end of this chapter.